Gift To The Future Painting

The subject matter, relating as it does genre painting of the 17th century (both still life and flower painting), still carries with it associations of time passing, of death and decay. The convention of casting forms in bronze has deeply-rooted cultural connections with the desire to give permanent form to important human events. Over time the patina that forms on the surface of the bronze through age and exposure parallels the passing away of particular moments of human life.These faded wall panels works of Michael Boffey, here in the form of cut flowers contained on a base ground and cast in bronze are not superfluities. have been transformed through various nominal and procedural processes, both gentle and violent, to allow a meditation on reminiscence. The playing fields of memory contain a superabundance of richly complex accounts, sometimes embellished and sometimes faded. Apparently nostalgia is a very bad thing, but despite benign advice about not looking back, we have little idea of what our world will be like in the future. It seems that coping with the fears and pleasures of now and with those of tomorrow does necessitate acknowledgement of a past.